the richer areas of the country, the poorer, southern republics having relatively fewer
books.
Immediately prior to the break up of Yugoslavia, children’s books were being
published in Zagreb, Belgrade, Sarajevo and Ljubljana, and titles indicate that children
there enjoyed the same kind of books as children anywhere—humour, fantasy, family
stories, adventure and animal stories as well as a range of information books. In the
1992 edition of The White Ravens, the list of recommended books published by the
International Youth Library in Munich, the former Yugoslavia was represented by
entries from Croatia and Slovenia; in the same year Bookbird published an article about
children’s books in Croatia (‘Mesić and Vlahović’, 1992). This shows that although
publishers of children’s books face new problems, there is still a range of picture books,
information books, teenage novels and magazines being produced. Mladost, a leading
Zagreb publisher, publishes a wide selection of titles including Price iz Davnine [Stories
of Yesterday] by Ivana Brlic-Mazuranic, who is described as the Croatian Hans Christian
Andersen. Mladost has responded to the new situation in the former Yugoslavia by
publishing Ubili in mi Kucu [They have Killed my House) by M.Kusec, in which children
who have had to leave their homes because of the war ‘cry for help’. Moj tata spava s
andelima [My Father is Sleeping with the Angels] by S.Tomas is written in the form of
the diary of a young girl, showing all the horrors of a wartorn city in a state of siege.
Alongside books like these are translations of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five stories, teenage
romances and, of course, folk- and fairy tales long known and told in Croatia.
In the 1992 edition of The White Ravens, Slovenia is represented by a book of modern
fairy tales, Niko Grafenauer’s Mahajana in druge pravljice o Majhnici [Mahayana and
other Fairy Tales about Piccolina] (1990). Grafenauer is a popular Slovene poet whose
style and themes are reminiscent of a more romantic age. The Bosnian poet, Josip Osti,
discussed the role of books in the lives of the children of Sarajevo in an interview
published in 1994 (Kordigel 1994). Despite the war, publishing for children has
continued. Osti emphasises the value of the ‘national’ literatures in this situation and
the way in which the Serbs and Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina turn to them more than
before.
HungaryDespite years of occupation by foreign powers, Hungary, where the official and literary
language was Latin until the nineteenth century, produced its first children’s book in
1538 and was open to the developments seen elsewhere in Europe. There were
translations of Campe’s Robinson by 1787 and of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe by 1844. Folk-
tales formed the basis of most of the vernacular children’s literature. Elek Benedek
(1859–1929) played a similar role to that of the Brothers Grimm in Germany and his
collection of traditional tales is the basis for many of the numerous modern editions
such as Világszép Nádszál Kisasvzony [The Most Beautiful Miss Rushes] (1990).
Hungarian children’s books now considered as classics were written by Móra Ferenc,
probably Hungary’s first true children’s author, and Zsigmond Moricz.
After the Second World War, a network of children’s libraries and the reading camps,
which were an essential part of public education, created an environment in which
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